LETTER TO G. V. CHICHERIN ON THE R.C.P.(B.) C.C. DIRECTIVES FOR THE SOVIET DELEGATION AT THE GENOA CONFERENCE

Written:Written on February 7, 1922Published:First published in part in the book,V. I. Lenin. Biografiya(V. I. Lenin Biography), 1960.

      Published in full in 1954 inCollected Works, Fifth (Russian) Ed., Vol. 44.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1976,

      Moscow,Volume 45,

      pages463-464a.Translated:Yuri SdobnikovTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet ArchiveYou may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

ComradeChicherin:

Allyour numerous assumptions are, I think, basically
incorrect and spring, so to say, from polemical
ardour.[2]

Thedirectives do not say that we should not agree tocoverin any form whatsoever any random claims of the
adversary with our own counter-claims.

Thechairman of the delegation (and the deputy chairman,
in this case) seems to have a host of powers, which gives
him almost autocratic power.

Yourletter (and Krasin’s even more so) shows—rather
showed—signs of panic. That is the most dangerous thing.
We are not the least bit afraid of a break-down: we shall
have an even better conference tomorrow. Isolation and
blockade will no longer intimidate us, nor will
intervention.

Weare proposing a broad agenda, and are hinting at our
own “palliative” programme of general measures.

Supposethey reject it?

Asthey please! (we might publish our extensive
programme on behalf of some member of the delegation,
who may even resign (with the C.C.’sconsen,of
course).

Youdo not want an extensive one, let’s have a narrower
one: Wir nehmen auch
Abschlagszahlung![1]

Weshall accept even the narrowest one, but we shall not
accept anything disadvantageous. We shall not submit to
ultimatums. If you want only “to trade”—let’s have it,
but we shall not buy a pig in a poke, and will not make
any deal without calculating any “claims”to the last
kopek.

Thatis all.

Wemust prepare and deploy all our guns—there will
always be time enough to decide which are to he used as a
show, and which are to be fired off and when.

Withcommunist greetings,Lenin

[1]Wealso accept payment by instalments!—Ed.

[2][MISSING]